Deaftale
by NoItsBecky
Summary: "I flinched at the sound. Not because there were apparently other sentient beings down here, but because it was a sound." A cynical deaf Frisk traverses the Underground, feat. Narrator!Chara, Charisk, and snarkiness. TW: Child abuse, self-harm, self-loathing, suicide, and a lot of profanity.
1. Falling Down Silently

**The style of writing used when Frisk was reading lips was originated by ChoyofBonk. Also, this story will be beta read by the lovely Ariza Luca. Now that credit has been given where credit is due, on to the story!**

* * *

The scent of flowers was overpowering.

When I lifted my head, I realized that that had been because I'd landed face-first in flowers.

And I was alive.

I was not supposed to be alive.

I was supposed to be dead.

Groaning, I pulled myself to my feet. Everything hurt, but upon a quick inspection of my body and the realization that I could stand without much struggle, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be dead anytime soon. Not from this fall, at least.

Clenching my teeth, I looked down at the flowers. The were a bright golden color, and I couldn't seem to understand what they were doing in this spot. It seemed all too random.

"Golden flowers." A quiet voice said. "They must have broken your fall."

I flinched violently at the sound.

Not because there were apparently other sentient beings down here, but because it was a sound.

For eight years, my ears had been useless. It was a somewhat unfortunate part of my life that I'd learned to accept.

My world was silent. It had been for so long that I could hardly remember what things sounded like.

So why could I suddenly hear this mysterious disembodied voice?

"What the-who the hell are you?!" I demanded. I didn't even know who I was talking to, but I knew I needed to know.

"Wait, you can hear me?" The voice sounded incredulous.

"Surprisingly enough, yes!" I exclaimed. I looked around for who was talking, and when I saw her, I had to suppress a gasp.

Because standing right there was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

Dammit, Fiona. You might be gayer than gay, but you've got bigger things to think about than a pretty girl who you can hear.

But despite my attempts to suppress my smol lesbian self, I couldn't stop myself from thinking something very obvious and very gay: Holy fuck, she was gorgeous. Even though she was probably straight, she was still gorgeous.

The girl had shoulder-length auburn hair that framed her face, which had rosy cheeks and deep crimson eyes. She wore a green sweater with a single yellow stripe and brown pants. She appeared to be translucent, and she floated slightly above the ground.

It was not normal to have red eyes.

It was not normal to be translucent.

It was _definitely_ not normal to be floating a few inches above the ground.

And it sure as fucking hell wasn't normal in any way, shape, or form for a deaf person to be able to hear you!

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded.

"A lot of things, but seriously, how can you hear me? Nobody can!" The girl exclaimed.

"And I can't hear anyone!" I replied.

"This is weird!" The statement was so obvious, but she said it like it wasn't.

"Okay, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?" I asked. "People are not supposed to be red-eyed, translucent, or too cool for gravity. And I've been deaf for eight fucking years, so it's incredibly illogical that I can hear you. You'd better have a damn good explanation."

The girl was silent for a moment before she responded, "It's a long story."

My teeth clenched, I gestured around the room we were in and snapped, "Does it _look_ like anything's going to be happening anytime soon? We've got time, now explain yourself."

"Alright." The girl cleared her throat. "Greetings. I am Chara, and you have fallen into the Underground." She began. I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment about the ever-so-creative name and her sudden formality, but she held up a hand. "To answer your questions, I am translucent because I am a ghost. This is also why I am able to float." I started to say something again, but Chara stopped me a second time. "Hear me out and then you can say whatever the hell you want. In any case, I cannot answer the question of why I have red eyes because I don't know. Nobody ever did, to be honest."

Chara was silent, and I decided it was safe to talk. "Okay, there's about a million and one things I want to say right now, but I'll just stick with the most pressing question that comes to mind: am I fucked now that I'm down here?"

Chara looked at me, and for a moment, everything was still. Then she started to laugh. When she caught her breath, she answered, "Oh, hell no."

"What? Why is that such a funny question?" I snapped.

"No, it-it's not." Chara answered. "It's just...the Underground is full of monsters, and they're better than any human you'll ever meet."

"Not like that's a very high bar." I muttered. Raising my voice, I continued, "I feel like I should be freaking out about how there are monsters and you're apparently a ghost, but I'm honestly so numb from the shock of surviving this fall right now that I don't even feel anything about it. But here's what I'm not numb to: the fact that I can hear you. What the hell is up with that?"

"If it's what I think it is, then it's...complicated." Chara answered. "Just go with it for now. But listen, let me just get this out of the way quick: if you expect us to be all buddy-buddy, stop expecting that. I don't even know why you're aware of my existence, and it would be preferable if you weren't. If the reason is what I think it is, then if you die, I'll go back to being dead like before. So I'll help you out, but don't think I'll do more than that."

"So basically, you'll help, but you don't want to be friends or anything." I summarized.

Chara shrugged. "Pretty much. In any case, you know my name, so I think I should know yours."

"I'm Fi-" I cut myself off. I'd just survived a fucking suicide attempt; no need to stick with that name. "Frisk."

"Fifrisk?" Chara looked weirded out.

"No. Just Frisk."

"Okay."

Aside from a bunch of cuts, scrapes, and bruises all over me, I seemed to be alright. I had a used bandage in my pocket that I decided to put on a particularly painful spot on my cheek that appeared to be bleeding. Okay, there appeared to be only one way to go. I started walking down the only hallway there was. I walked through a doorway and saw…a flower. Well, great. Wait, it had a face. What the fuck?

"Oh, lovely." Chara muttered, a twinge of sarcasm in her voice. The flower didn't seem to hear her.

What was so bad about this flower? It had a face, yeah, and that was weird, but somehow I got the feeling that that wasn't the weirdest thing down here.

"Here's what's bad: he's going to try and kill you. His name is Flowey."

Wait, what? Chara had heard that?

"Yeah. I think our SOULs might be linked somehow-well, your SOUL and the remnants of mine. And having linked SOULs means that we can hear each other's thoughts if we try. That's probably also how you can hear me when nobody else can and when you shouldn't be able to."

 _Our SOULs?_ I tried to direct the thought towards Chara.

"I'll explain later."

That was when I felt a strange sensation. It was like my heart was being torn out of my chest, yet it wasn't painful in the slightest. When I looked down, my chest somehow had no gaping hole in it, and there was a bright red heart hovering in front of it. It appeared to be glowing slightly.

 _This flower is going to try and kill me. What if there is no later?_

"Then you won't need to know anything about SOULs!"

 _Fine!  
_

While I'd been thought-speaking with Chara, the flower had been talking. There were white bullet-like things surrounding him. _Shit._

"I know he says they're friendliness pellets, but they aren't."

 _FRIENDLINESS PELLETS?_

"Oh, yeah, you can't hear. But anyways, dodge them, even though he says to run into them. Trust me."

 _Yeah, no shit._ The bullets came towards me, and I dodged them immediately. Flowey looked slightly pissed. "Hey, …, you m… them." That was all I was able to make out.

Another wave of the bullets came, and I dodged them. ".. dis a joke? ... you branded? R... . The. B...ets." Bullets. Okay, he was dropping the act. _He said bullets, right?_

"Yeah, he did."

"I ...n trendliest pellets." Another wave. More dodging. The flower's expression became malicious. "Y.. know what's ... here, d.n't you? You j..t wan... see me suffer. DIE." Shit, shit, _shit_. Those same bullet-pellet-whatever things surrounded me and began closing in. I was frozen, and even if I'd been less petrified, there was nowhere to run. I was seconds away from death when, our of nowhere, the bullets disappeared. A fireball appeared and knocked the flower out of the way, and a friendly-looking goat lady showed up. This day was just getting weirder and weirder.

The goat lady spoke. "What a t...le creature, tortur... such a , innoc... yooth (youth?)." Had she just called me innocent? Me? Ha! "Do n.t be afr..d, my c..ld. I am , ca..taker of the ruins." She would have continued, but I cut her off.

"I just got assaulted by a talking flower. Do you expect me to trust you?"

"Oh, well, t..t flower is cer...nly a bad cr..ture. How..er, the Und..gr..nd is full of m..sters, and very few are the one y.. just en...tered." She paused before adding, "Child, y.. have an int...ing accent." Ah, yes. The trademark accent of the deaf, complete with all the sounds my mouth had forgotten how to pronounce.

"Don't worry, she's trustworthy. Very overprotective, though. Oh, and her butterscotch pie is to die for." Chara said.

 _How do you know?_

"She's my mom."

 _Uh, what?_ I looked between the teenage girl beside me and the goat lady in front of me.

"Well, not my biological mom." Chara explained. "But she's more of a mom than my real one ever was. Just for the record, her name's Toriel. You probably didn't pick up on that through lip-reading."

 _Thanks.  
_

"No problem."

I didn't know how to respond to Toriel. Did I tell her I was deaf? No. Nobody ever reacted well to finding out I was deaf. Instead, I just said, "Thanks, I guess. I'm Fio-" I stopped myself again. Frisk. Not Fiona. Frisk. "I'm Frisk. And...if it's not too much trouble, it would help me out a lot if you could speak slowly. Please don't ask why."

"Is this better, young one?" Toriel asked, her mouth moving slower already.

I nodded. "Much."

"I pass though this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to come here in a long time. Come with me, I will guide you." She walked off, and I followed, continuing to mind-speak with Chara.

"Alright, I fully expect you to inform Mom that you can't hear a word she's saying." Chara snapped.

 _But what if it ends badly? What if she leaves me?_

"She won't." Chara assured me. "Believe me, she wouldn't abandon you if you were blind, deaf, mute, and paralyzed from head to toe."

 _And you know this how?_

"I lived with her for three years." She deadpanned. "I highly doubt that she would abandon someone just because they can't hear. Where did you get the idea that she would?"

I shrugged. _Experience._

Chara winced. "Typical. Of course _humans_ would treat you badly for that."

I raised an eyebrow, switching to speech out loud. "Chara, you...you _are_ aware that you're human, right?"

"Sadly, yes." Chara answered.

"So you're a human who hates humans?"

"Yep."

My expression turned deadpan.

"Don't question it, please. In any case, Mom's waiting for you. I'm not going to make you tell her your ears don't function, but it would probably be better if you did at some point."

I just shrugged and headed into the next room.

I headed into the next room. Yep, there was Toriel. "My child, you took quite a while back there."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. It's kind of crazy, being down here. Trying to adjust to it." No sense in telling her that her child was in my head. Speaking of which, why _was_ her child in my head? What was she doing there? Hadn't anyone ever taught her that it was rude to invade people's thoughts?

"No, not really." Chara said.

I didn't respond to that. The room was mostly purple, with white stairs, leaves, and a golden star-like thing up ahead. As Toriel headed up the stairs, I did what was only natural-I touched the star.

"The shadow of the ruins looms above, filling you with determination. HP fully restored."

 _How does that fill me with determination?_

"I don't know, but trust me, determination is useful."

 _Okay…_

I followed Toriel into the next room. "Welcome to your new home, innocent one. Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins." Toriel stepped on some buttons in a pattern and flipped a switch, and a door up ahead opened. Coming back to me, she said, "The Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them." Toriel left the room, and I took some time to look around.

There was a sign on the wall, and I walked towards it to read it. Chara narrated the whole thing for some reason.

"Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road."

"Uh, what?"

"I don't know what it means any more than you do."

"But you fucking _lived_ here."

"Not here, specifically." Chara replied. "I didn't live in the Ruins. Besides, it's just a cryptic sign."

"Wait, there's more than just these ruins?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

I shrugged and walked into the next room. Toriel was waiting for me. "To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, my child. I have labeled the ones that you need to flip."

I followed Toriel down the path. Damn right she'd labeled them. There were countless arrows and a note I didn't bother reading next to one. Up ahead, there were two switches. One of them had the same arrows and note. Verdict? Press it. I flipped the switch. "Splendid! I am proud of you, little one. Let us move to the next room. Although, I must ask before we do...Frisk, are you a boy, a girl, or something else? I am sorry, but humans do not fall down often, so monsters cannot easily identify a human's gender or lack thereof by looking at them."

"Girl." I responded instantly, almost without thinking about it.

Toriel nodded. "All right, I will keep that in mind." She left the room. I decided to test the other switch.

"This switch doesn't even work." Chara scoffed upon my attempts. "I'm pretty sure most humans who fall are younger than you."

"How old were you when you fell?" I asked her.

"I was eleven."

"Damn." I said before going to the next room. Chara got dragged along, probably because of the whole linked SOULs thing. Whatever a SOUL was.

"As a human living in the underground, monsters may you." Toriel said. "You will need to be prepared for this situation. However, worry not! The process is simple." Simple. Okay. "When you are in a fight, strike up a friendly conversation." A conversation. Yeah. That would be simple enough if I could, you know, hear. And if talking to someone when they were fighting you was a good idea. "Stall for time. I will come to resolve the conflict." Toriel paused before adding, "It also helps to make eye contact."

Huh?

Oh. Duh.

Toriel wanted me to make eye contact.

I couldn't, though, obviously. I was deaf, so I needed to look at people's lips if I wanted to lip-read what people were saying. She didn't need to know that, though. Not yet.

"Practice talking to the dummy." Toriel instructed. I walked up to the dummy, and I felt something strange. It was almost like my heart was being ripped out of my chest, but it wasn't painful. It just felt…weird.

"You encountered the Dummy." Chara said.

In front of me were four buttons, each with a single word on them: FIGHT, ACT, ITEM, or MERCY.

I raised my fist for a moment, ready to smack the FIGHT button hard.

"Don't."

I flinched when I heard Chara's voice out of the blue. _Huh?_

"Look, I won't pretend I'm some amazing merciful human being, because I'm really not. But if you have to kill something, don't make that something a dummy. Save death for when it's necessary."

I chose ACT.

"You can check, or you can talk."

I decided to talk. "Um…hello there, dummy."

"You talked to the Dummy. It doesn't seem much for conversation. Toriel seems happy with you." Chara said. "You won! You earned 0 EXP and 0 gold."

 _What kind of a win is that?_

"Well, you lived."

"Ah, very good! You are very good." Toriel said, leaving the room. In the next room, she said something about puzzles that I didn't bother lip-reading. The next room contained…spikes. "This is the puzzle, but…here. Take my hand for a moment." I obliged, and she led me to the other side. "Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now." I followed her into the next room.

Toriel said something, but she wasn't facing me completely, so I didn't know what it was. Then she walked off. Fuck.

Thankfully, Chara saved the day. "She wants you to walk to the end of the room."

 _I can do that._

"I know that, but she doesn't seem to."

I shrugged and walked through the room like it was nothing. Because it _was_ nothing.

When I reached the end, Toriel suddenly showed up. "Greetings, Frisk." Seriously? She'd been right there? "Do not worry, I did not leave you." You don't fucking say? "I was merely behind this pillar the whole time. Thank you for trusting me. However, there was an important reason for this exercise…to test your independence. I must attend to some important business, and you must stay alone for a while. Please remain here. It is dangerous to explore by yourself." Toriel paused. "I have an idea. I will give you a cell phone."

Oh.

Well, fuck.

A cell phone.

For speaking and _hearing._

Before I could decline, she handed it to me.

"I hate to say 'I told you so' but-"

 _Shut the hell up, Chara. Not the time._

"If you are in need of anything, just call. Be good, alright?" Toriel left the room.

Chara sat down against the wall, pulled her knees up against her chest, and shook her head, sighing. "Frisk, look. I don't know how fucked-up your surface life was, but Toriel wouldn't abandon you if you were blind, deaf, mute, and paralyzed. Just tell her!"

"Does it look like I can do that now?" I snapped.

"Okay, okay. Jesus. You need to tell her when you see her again, though."

I nodded, sitting down next to Chara. "Can we just sit here for a while?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Chara nodded.

And for a while, that was where we stayed.


	2. I'm Reading Into Things Too Much

After about half an hour, Frisk picked up the cell phone Mom had given her. "Does this thing have 2048?" She swiped at the screen.

I shook my head. "All it does is call people."

"Dammit." Frisk looked like she wanted to throw said cell phone across the room. Thankfully, she didn't. "Well, with playing on this phone out of the question, it seems like there's a grand total of nothing to do here."

"You could call Mom."

Frisk gave me a deadpan look. "Yes, tell the deaf girl to use a cell phone. Great thinking, Chara."

"Or rather, I could take control of you and call her."

"No."

"You could tell me what to say."

"Still no."

Okay. There had to be some way for Frisk to let up. Think, think, think…oh! "What if she calls you?"

Frisk hesitated for a moment before relenting with a, "Fine." Success! "You may _only_ take control of me if you have to. If Toriel calls me, then yes, you may take control. But if it isn't absolutely necessary, then my body is mine and only mine."

"What if someone puts a gun to your head and says to let Chara take control or they pull the trigger?" I asked, smirking.

Frisk just gave me a 'Really?' expression. "People don't exactly climb a mountain that's said to make people disappear to go on a hiking trip, you know."

"Jesus Christ, Frisk. It was a _joke_." I said before I realized the implications of what she'd said. "Wait, what do you-"

Frisk cut me off and went straight into, "Look, Chara, can you please explain all that shit about linked souls now?"

Oh. Okay. So we were pretending she hadn't just implied anything. I sighed and nodded. "There are seven different colors a human soul can be naturally. Different colors represent different qualities, and the color of your soul represents your most dominant quality out of those seven. Orange is bravery. Purple is perseverance. Green is kindness. Light blue is patience. Dark blue is integrity. Yellow is justice. Red is determined. All humans have determination, but people with red souls have the most. You have a red soul, and so do I. When you fell down, those flowers you fell on? That…" I hesitated. "That was my grave."

Frisk sucked in a sharp breath. "Holy shit."

"Yeah. Six other humans have fallen, but none of them had red souls, so they had enough determination to wake me up, and I was stuck with them their whole journey, but it wasn't enough to be able to see and hear me. But you have a red soul, so you have enough. I guess our SOULs wound up linked in the process-well, your SOUL and whatever the hell is left of mine, anyway. SOUL connections are strong enough to transcend physical limitations like your deafness, which is why you can hear me."

"Can I just link my SOUL to everyone on the fucking planet?" Frisk said sarcastically.

"No, that would be too much exertion for your SOUL, and it would probably kill you, or at the very least, severely damage your SOUL. SOULs are pretty much the culmination of our being, and since ours are connected, I can't get very far away from you. And as for the thought-sensing thing, well, one of us has to be trying to either send our thoughts to the other person or know what the other person is thinking."

Frisk nodded. "I think I get it. It's pretty confusing, but I think I get it."

"Hey, Frisk?"

"Yeah?"

I paused for a moment before asking, "What year is it?

"2040." Frisk replied immediately.

"Holy shit."

"What?"

"I fell down 25 years ago."

Frisk's eyes widened. "Damn."

"Well, in any case, I suppose we should just get to the next room and see what this place has for us."

Frisk shrugged. "I guess so." She and I left the room.

In the next room, there was a Froggit, some leaf piles, and another SAVE point. Naturally, Frisk went to the Froggit first. It ribbited a couple times. "Okay." I said. "Let me translate this." I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, human. I have some advice for you about battling monsters. If you act a certain way or fight until you almost defeat them, they might not want to battle you anymore. If a monster does not want to fight you, please…use some mercy, human."

Frisk looked surprised. "It really said all that?" I just nodded. "Damn." Next stop was the SAVE point.

"Playfully crinkling through the leaves fills you with determination. HP fully restored." I said.

"But I didn't playfully crinkle through them." Frisk pointed out.

I held my hands up in an 'I surrender' pose. "I tried, okay? Just SAVE."

Frisk SAVEd. Then she turned on her heel and went through a doorway to the side. In there was a bowl full of candy in bright wrappers of different colors with a sign beside it. "It says 'take one.' Take a piece of candy?" I asked.

Frisk nodded energetically. "Hell yeah!" She carefully took a single candy with a hot pink wrapper.

"You got the Monster Candy." I said. "It has a distinct non-licorice flavor."

Frisk gave me a strange look, unwrapped the candy, and popped it in her mouth. For some SOUL-related reason, I could taste it with her. "You ate the Monster Candy." I said, not wanting to say anything about how it tasted.

Frisk swallowed the candy. "Tastes like licorice." She commented.

There was a moment of silence, and then we both burst out laughing. That was when I noticed something. "Hey, Frisk, look over there!" I gestured over to a corner.

Frisk looked where I was pointing. "Oh!" There was an abandoned backpack in the corner. She headed over to it and picked it up. "This'll be useful." She then headed straight back to the bowl of candy, unzipped the backpack, and started putting candy in.

"How disgusting." I said. Frisk paid me no mind. I tried again. "You feel like the scum of the earth." That was when the bowl fell. "Look at what you've done."

That seemed to bring Frisk back to her senses. "Shit, I ruined it." She dropped to her hands and knees and began to put the candy back. I also noticed her taking some candy out of her backpack and putting it in the bowl. Once she was done, she put the bowl back on the pedestal.

"You like licorice?" I asked.

Frisk shrugged. "I don't get to have candy much-or at all, really-so I take whatever I can get."

My first assumption was that she was on a diet, but I took one look at her thin, bony frame and decided that wasn't it.

So what was it?

She looked to be around my age. By that age, a person should have had some candy, right? At the very least, enough to not empty an entire bowl of it into their bag. Hadn't she experienced Halloween? How about parties?

I was reading too much into things. Maybe her family on the surface ate healthy. Or maybe they were poor. There were plenty of reasons. Besides, she'd said it was 2040. Who knew what had become of the surface? Humanity was probably on the path to eradicating itself. Maybe she'd been raised in a world of war. Or maybe it was the apocalypse!

It disturbed me, how happy I was at the prospect of humanity being wiped out. Maybe I was a demon, just like they'd all said. Only a demon could be like me.

I decided not to think about stuff like that for now. It would only make me upset. And even though I deserved to be upset, Frisk was depending on me to help her, and I couldn't help much if I was thinking about what a terrible person I was.

Frisk turned and left the room. As she was walking through the original room, though, she was stopped by a Whimsun and entered a fight. Her bright red SOUL appeared in front of her chest. "Whimsun approaches meekly!" I exclaimed.

Frisk almost immediately smacked the ACT button, hard. "You can check, terrorize, or console." I said.

"Console." Frisk said. "Ar-" The Whimsun…well, it did the Whimsun thing. Let's just put it that way.

"Halfway through your first word, Whimsun bursts into tears and runs away. YOU WON! You earned 0 XP and 0 gold."

As her soul went back into her chest, Frisk turned to me. "Chara, that's not a win. First off, I didn't get to fucking help the poor Whimsun. Second, I didn't even get anything out of it! So how did I win?"

I shrugged. "Frisk, I've never understood why things work the way they do. Don't ask me."

Frisk shook her head but said, "Okay."

In the next room, it was all fine and good except for the fact that a shitload of floor was cracked to the extreme. "Shit." Frisk and I said in unison. "Looks like there's no getting around this." She stepped as cautiously as possible, but the floor still broke, even under the weight of her tiny body. Seriously, she wasn't much taller than five feet, and I could practically see her bones with how skinny she was. It was almost concerning. Did she have an eating disorder?

I decided not to ask about it. After all, she hadn't asked about my surface life. My life as…her. As Cl-

Realizing where my train of thought was headed, I made the (most likely wise) decision to tune out of my thoughts and bring myself back to reality. Frisk had fallen through the floor, and there were two doorways. Frisk went through the one farther to the right-at least, she tried. A Froggit blocked her, sending her into another fight. "Froggit hopped close!" I said.

Frisk put her hand on the ACT button, somewhat more gently than last time. "You can check, threat, or compliment."

"Compliment." Frisk decided. "Uh…hi, Mr. Froggit. You, um, look very nice today."

"Froggit didn't understand what you said, but was flattered anyway." I said, unable to suppress a giggle.

It was the Froggit's turn then. Its attack was a miniature frog that hopped in Frisk's direction. She flinched away as soon as it got too close. It seemed almost like an instinct. I suppose dodging can be an instinct, but Frisk's dodging seemed more thoughtless than it should have been.

Well, she didn't take any damage, so I wasn't complaining. "Froggit seems reluctant to fight you." I mentioned.

Frisk almost punched the MERCY button. "You can spare, or flee." I said.

"Spare." Frisk sounded firm.

And she did. "YOU WON!" I exclaimed. "You earned 0 XP and 2 gold."

"Finally, I got something out of this!" Frisk commented. With that, she went through the doorway-for real this time-and it brought her back up to her original area, only she was on the other side of the cracked floor. "Success!" She exclaimed. I flashed her a thumbs-up.

In the next room, Frisk's cell phone began ringing. Naturally, she continued on as if nothing was happening. Frustrated, I took every ounce of ghost-ness I had and possessed her body, sending her into ghost form not unlike my own. "Aah! What the hell, Chara?" Frisk demanded.

"Mom's calling you." That was all I said before picking up.

"Hello? This is Toriel." I smiled when I heard Mom's voice. "For no reason in particular, which do you prefer? Cinnamon or butterscotch?" Holy shit, was she…?

"Hang on one second." I said. I took the phone away from my ear and put my hand over the reciever. "Cinnamon or butterscotch?" I asked Frisk.

Frisk shrugged. "I've almost never had either of them. But cinnamon, I guess."

I gave Frisk a single bewildered look. Why cinnamon? Butterscotch was clearly the better choice. "Do you dislike butterscotch?" She shook her head. "Okay." I put my ear back to the phone. "Cinnamon." I reported.

"Oh, I see." Mom said. "Thank you very much! But you do not dislike butterscotch, do you? I know what your preference is, but…would you turn up your nose if you found it on your plate?" She was so making Frisk a pie. Frisk had better fucking share it.

"Nah, I like both." I answered.

"Right, right, I understand. Thank you for being patient, by the way!"

"No problem, Mom." The words slipped out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I clapped a hand over my mouth, and Frisk's eyes widened.

"Did…did you just call me 'Mom'?"

I glanced at Frisk with a 'Help' expression. "It's fine." She said.

"…yeah. I did." I said into the phone.

"Would that make you happy? To call me 'Mother'?"

"Yeah. I think it would."

"Well, then call me whatever you like!"

The call ended, and we didn't talk anymore about what had just gone down after that. The next puzzle involved a rock and some spikes. Frisk pushed the rock to a sort of plate or whatever that caused the spikes to disappear. She'd barely crossed where the spikes had been when she was stopped by a Froggit. "Froggit hopped close!"

"Again?" Frisk asked.

"Yes. Again." I said simply.

"Okay." Frisk pressed her hand against the ACT button. "Compliment." She said it before I even provided options.

"Froggit didn't understand what you said but was flattered anyway."

"Are these things like a goddamn hive mind?" Frisk asked dryly before she began dodging the attack. It was different this time. Instead of a single frog, there were a bunch of small fly-like creatures. She almost dodged them all, but one of them at the end of the attack grazed her arm, ripping a small hole in her sweater and creating a cut.

"Froggit seems reluctant to fight you." I said.

Frisk pushed the MERCY button. "Spare."

"YOU WON! You earned 0 XP and 2 gold."

Once we were out of the fight, I decided to check Frisk's HP. Best to make sure she wasn't too badly hurt, right?

What I saw shocked me beyond belief.

HP: 8/10

"F-Frisk…" I stammered.

"What?" Frisk asked.

"Wh…why…" I couldn't seem to force the words out. My voice was quiet and breathy. "Why…" All of a sudden, the words seemed to tumble out.

" _Why do you only have 10 base HP?!_ "

* * *

 **I'm really sorry for taking so damn long to update. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. Please review! =)**


	3. Depressed Ghosts and Bake Sales

**The next chapter won't take this long.**

 **I promise.**

 **I really hate writing the Ruins puzzles.**

 **Disclaimer: If I owned Undertale, Chara and Asriel would be saveable. Unfortunately, it belongs to Toby Fox.**

 **Also, this is from Chara's POV because it just works for the chapter.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Frisk looked at me blankly. "Wh-what do you mean?" She clearly didn't understand what I was talking about. I mentally facepalmed. Of course she didn't know what I meant-she'd never been underground!

"HP stands for Hope Points." I explained. "The more base HP you have, the harder it is for you to get hurt. Most humans have 20 HP if they aren't hurt and their LV doesn't increase."

"LV?"

"LOVE. LOVE is an acronym. You don't want it. We aren't talking about it anymore."

"Okay..."

"Anyway, 20 is the default. If you're feeling less hopeful than normally, your base HP drops to 18 or 19. If you're feeling more hopeful, it might increase to 21 or 22. But Frisk..." I sighed. "You're all the way down at 10. Your base HP is way down. Frisk, stuff like this doesn't happen for no reason. What...what happened to you?"

Frisk was silent for a minute before she said, "Chara, I think that's my business."

I clenched my teeth, running my fingers through my auburn hair. "Frisk, you'll never survive with 10 HP."

"Well, then so be it." Frisk snapped.

"That's it?" I demanded incredulously. "That's how you respond to the fact that you're twice as likely to die? _So be it?!_ Fuck, Frisk, I'm trying to help you here!"

"Chara, I get that you mean well." Frisk was clearly struggling to keep a level head. "But look. Maybe telling you what's wrong with me would help me out with this whole HP thing, but I've seen a lot of shit in my fourteen years." Ditto, Frisk. Ditto. And wow, she was my age. "And I'd prefer not to reopen old wounds, thanks. So sorry, but I don't intend on telling you."

I raised an eyebrow, but said only, "Alright. If you change your mind, let me know. I'm...always here to listen." I didn't know why I cared, but I did. I supposed that since I was stuck to her, I may as well be at least somewhat nice.

Frisk just nodded and continued on. In the next room was a lot of cracked floor. Like, a _lot_ a lot.

"Okay, I'm useless. You're on your own." I said immediately.

"Chara!" Frisk turned her head, giving me a glare.

I put my hands up in surrender. "I remember nothing about this puzzle, okay? None of the puzzles in the Ruins are lethal, though, don't worry."

"If you say so." Frisk replied skeptically.

I shouldn't have done what I did next, but I did. What can I say? My curiosity got the better of me. We had linked SOULs (not that there was much left of my SOUL, but whatever), so I took advantage of it.

I tried to hear Frisk's thoughts.

Yeah. Call me invasive, call me nosy, call me a jerk. I really don't care.

What I did care about at that moment, though, were the incredibly concerning things I heard.

 _What does she want?  
_

 _There has to be something. She wouldn't give two shits about me if she didn't have a good reason._

 _Maybe she wants me dead. Maybe they both want me dead._

 _Maybe it would be better if I were._

Well, she clearly hadn't been lying when she'd said she'd seen a lot of shit.

That was when I realized: when I'd fallen down here, I'd thought the exact same way as her.

There was no way Frisk was like me.

But…what if she was?

It all made sense. Her instinctive dodging. Her low HP. Her thoughts that people weren't nice for no good reason and that it would be better if she were dead…they all seemed to be explained with that possibility.

I shook my head. There were other explanations. I was just desperate to finally know someone like me.

When I tuned back into reality, Frisk was on the other side of the cracked floor. "Please tell me all the other puzzles aren't this difficult."

"I'm pretty sure they're not." I answered. "I think I remember one lever puzzle that was pretty hellish, but everything else is fine."

Frisk nodded. "Good."

In the room after that, we found three rocks a short distance away from some metal plates, with spikes around ten feet away blocking the path. "I think you need to get the rocks on the plates." I said, sounding a bit unsure.

"Jesus, Chara. Good to know how well you know these puzzles." Frisk rolled her eyes but began pushing the rocks onto their respective plates. The first two weren't any problem for her aside from them being a bit of a workout, but the third one, well...

"Whoa there, pardner! Who said you could push _me_ around?"

Of course, due to the rock's lack of a mouth, Frisk just thought it was a particularly heavy stone. "Fuck, why won't you budge?" She grunted.

"Because I won't let you push me!"

"Frisk, the rock is talking." I explained, a giggle or two slipping out.

Frisk turned and gave me a deadpan look. "The rock is talking." She repeated.

"Damn right I am!"

"Yes. The rock is talking."

"What's it saying?" Frisk questioned.

"Can't you hear me?!"

"It's not letting you push it. Try...asking nicely?"

"You're lucky I'm desperate." Frisk muttered. Turning to the rock, she said, "Excuse me, Mr. Rock. Would you please move over?"

"Hmm?" The rock said. "So you're _askin'_ me to move over? Okay, pumpkin, just for you." The rock moved forward approximately five inches.

Frisk and I glanced at each other and just did that sort of exasperated sigh where you close your eyes and wonder why everyone around you is so weird. Brushing a lock of her short black hair behind her ear, Frisk requested patiently, "Could you move more?"

"Hmm? You want me to move some more? Alrighty, how's this?" The rock moved more, but to our dismay, it wasn't forwards-it was to the left.

"Why." Frisk muttered. She was obviously losing her cool, but she still calmly informed the rock, "That was the wrong way."

"Hmm? That was the wrong direction? Okay, think I got it." At long last, the rock moved to the right place.

"Thanks." Frisk looked relieved. I trailed behind her as she made her way over to where the spikes had previously been. Just as she was about to take a step, though, they suddenly reappeared. "Shit!" Frisk jerked back.

The last of her patience clearly having evaporated, Frisk stomped back over to the rock. "What the fuck?" She demanded.

"Hmm? You wanted me to _stay_ there? You're giving me a real workout." Seemingly reluctantly, the rock moved back onto the plate.

"And stay there!" Frisk snapped. Giving an annoyed sigh, she headed back to where the spikes had been before. When they didn't reappear, she stepped over. "That was harder than it needed to be." We headed into the next room.

In that area, there really wasn't much. Just a table with cheese, a SAVE point, and a small, barely noticeable hole with a mouse peeking out. Frisk headed over to the SAVE point, placing her hands on it.

"Knowing that the mouse might one day leave its hole and get the cheese...it fills you with determination." I attempted.

"No, it doesn't." Frisk deadpanned.

"Yes, it does."

"I think I know me better than you know me."

"Well, try to be determined."

"Okay." Frisk did some unenthusiastic jazz hands. "Yay, I'm so determined. Better?"

"Much." I laughed.

Frisk glanced over at the cheese. "That had better be some damn good cheese if it made me determined."

"Well, it's been there for quite a while." I admitted. "It's stuck to the table."

Frisk rolling her eyes, we left the room.

In the next room, there appeared to be a little more. Lying on top of a pile of bright red leaves was a ghost.

"That looks like something little kids dress up as on Halloween." Frisk commented.

I laughed. "It does, doesn't it? Well, believe me, they may look like a costume, but they're a legitimate ghost. Try talking to them."

Frisk raised an eyebrow and gestured to her ears. "Do ghosts move their fucking mouths?"

"Yes, actually."

"Oh. Okay." Frisk walked forward. "Um, hello there, ghost. My name is Fi-" She cut herself off. "No, my name is Frisk. What's your name?"

"Zzzzzzzzzz…" That was the only response. There was a pause, and then again. "Zzzzzzzzzz…"

Frisk turned to me. "What did they say?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. This ghost is saying 'Z' over and over again, pretending to sleep."

Frisk raised an eyebrow. "That's dumb."

"Well, you can move it with force, or you can do nothing."

Shrugging, Frisk made an attempt to push the ghost, but her hands right through them, and suddenly, she was in a battle. Against the ghost. She was fighting a ghost that had pretended to sleep.

"Here comes Napstablook." I said.

Frisk pushed the ACT button. "You can check, flirt, cheer, or threaten." I said. "I think I remember this ghost from when I was alive, though. They're not exactly the happiest of ghosts, so I'd try to cheer them."

Frisk nodded, giving Napstablook a patient smile. They managed a weak "heh..." and started to cry. Frisk dodged the tears, which appeared to be some sort of acid or something like that.

"Try again." I encouraged. "They look a little better."

"Okay..." Frisk paused for a moment. "Hey, Napstablook. Why are skeletons forever alone?" Silence. "Because they have no _body_ to love!"

"heh heh..." Napstablook started to cry again, and I winced as a tear hit Frisk's right shoulder, creating a hole in her sweater and burning a hole in her skin. She grimaced.

"You'll need that candy after this." I advised her. "In any case, it looks like cheering's improved Napstablook's mood, because I think they want to show you something."

Frisk nodded. "Let's see it, Napstablook!" She said energetically.

They started to cry, but this time, instead of falling onto Frisk, the tears floated up on top of their head until they had formed a top hat. "i call it dapper blook...do you like it..." They were talking so slowly, even without being asked, that presumably, Frisk could read their lips without much trouble

"They're eagerly waiting your response." I said.

Frisk flashed them a thumbs up. "Looking good, Napstablook!"

"oh no..." Frisk's SOUL returned to her chest, and the buttons disappeared, the battle having ended. "i usually come to the ruins because there's nobody around…but today i met someone nice…oh, i'm rambling again…i'll get out of your way…" Napstablook disappeared.

Frisk looked at me. "Don't they have anyone to hang out with? A friend? A sibling? Do ghosts even have siblings?"

I nodded. "They had a family. But everyone's moved on at this point. They're all still somewhere in the Underground, but everyone's kind of spread out all over. Their sibling was the ghost possessing that training dummy from before."

Frisk nodded. "Anyone else?"

"They had a cousin at one point that they were always with. What was her name again…?" I paused for a moment before it hit me. "Hapstablook! Yeah, that was her name. She was Napstablook's cousin. They hung out all the time; it was pretty rare to see one without the other."

"Hapstablook and Napstablook, huh?" Frisk looked vaguely amused.

"Those aren't the names their parents gave them." I explained. "There were four of them; they all called themselves nicknames like that because Blook was their last name and they liked the way it sounded. I don't even remember what their original names were. But yeah; Hapstablook and Napstablook were like best friends. Hapstablook was _such_ a drama queen, though." I laughed. "She was pretty much your stereotypical girl. Her house was pink, she wrote in diaries, she had posters of boys all over her walls…you get the picture. Not to mention that she was literally a pink ghost. She was pretty much the girliest girl anyone would ever meet." I stopped talking for a moment before sighing and continuing, "I don't know where she went, though. When the fourth and fifth humans came through, she wasn't there anymore. Napstablook doesn't really have anyone to talk to now."

"Wow." Frisk said. "That…that sounds horrible."

"I think you made them a little happier, though." I pointed out.

"That's good." Frisk said, and we made our way through a doorway that went off to the side.

Frisk read the sign a few feet away from the doorway. "Huh. A spider bake sale. Made by spiders, for spiders… _ew._ "

I looked at the sign to see what had been so gross and grimaced. Apparently the food was made of spiders.

"I feel like you should go." I said.

"Will you still feel that way after I tell you I have arachnaphobia?"

"Oh. Well, if you want, I could take control and buy something for you. You can tune out."

Frisk nodded. "I think I'd like that."

I forced myself into her body, turning around and leaving the room. "I think I remember where this bake sale was." I thought out loud. I made my way into the other doorway we'd ignored, and sure enough, there was a room with two neatly-placed spiderwebs and a sign. I shuddered at the sight of the spiderwebs-they'd always creeped me out-but brushed it off and read the sign. _Spider Bake Sale. All proceeds go to real spiders._

In front of one spiderweb, there was a note reading, _7G=1 Spider Donut._ The other one had a similar message, except it went, _18G=1 jug of Spider Cider._

"You can get a donut, or you can get cider." I said to Frisk.

"Donut." She responded immediately, her eyes tightly closed.

"Okay." I placed 7 gold into the spiderweb, and some spiders crawled down and dropped a donut in front of me. Picking it up, I placed it in the backpack and left the room. "Okay, you can have control back."

All of a sudden, Frisk was back in her body and I was back in my ghost form. "Okay, let's go."

We reentered the room with the sign for the bake sale. Further in, there were some more Froggits. "Do I need to talk to them?" Frisk asked.

"No, I don't think so." I answered. "Why?"

"Because I'm _really_ not in the mood."

I laughed a little. "Jesus; lazy much? Well, I think you can get away with ignoring them."

"Good." Frisk walked towards the doorway into the next room, but her phone began to ring before she could.

With little more than a, "Mom's calling you," I took control and picked up the phone.

"Hello?" Unsurprisingly, it was Mom. "I just realized that it has been a while since I have cleaned up. I was not expecting to have company so soon. There are probably many things lying about here and there. Feel free to pick them up, but I would not recommend picking up more than you need. Someday, there might be something you greatly desire. You will want to leave room in your pockets for when that day comes."

"Okay." That was when something hit me. "Hey, can you hang on a second?" I asked.

"Of course." I took the phone away from my ear, covering the receiver. "Frisk, should I tell her you're deaf?"

"No." She said immediately.

"She has to know at some point." I reminded her.

"Yeah, but...I want to talk to her about it on my own. In person. And besides, you're on a _phone_. What woul you say? 'Hey, Mom, I can't hear anything, but I'm using a device that will only work if both users are hearing!' What, will you tell her that her dead daughter's in my head? Because I don't think that would go over particularly well."

When she put it that way... "You know, that actually makes total sense."

"In any case, you've been leaving Toriel hanging for far too long."

Oh! Duh. I brought the phone back to my ear...or was it Frisk's ear? I didn't even know how to think of this body. "Well, I'll see you soon."

"Goodbye, my child." There was a click, and I put the phone back in the pocket of the backpack, handing over control.

In the next room, there were some areas of cracked floor and a door at the end with spikes blocking it. "You need to find a switch beneath one of those areas of cracked floor." I explained.

"So will I have to fall?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Okay..." Grimacing, Frisk stepped onto an area of cracked floor, wincing as it disappeared and she fell. In that room, there was a doorway that presumably went back up, some leaves to break falls, and a hair ribbon of a faded pink color. Frisk picked it up curiously, and I involuntarily gasped. That ribbon was beyond familiar to me.

"What?" Frisk asked.

"N-nothing." I said. "You got the Faded Ribbon. I guess if you're cuter, they-" My voice cracked against my will. "They don't hit you as hard."

Frisk turned to me, looking concerned. "Chara...are you okay?"

I forced a nod. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"If you say so..." Frisk looked unconvinced, but she put away the hair ribbon and went through the door without further questioning.

In the next room, she found Napstablook again. "i fell down a hole...now i can't get up..." They moaned. "go on without me...wait...ghosts can fly, can't they...oh well..." They disappeared.

Frisk raised an eyebrow. "They need a therapist."

 _So do you,_ I thought, but I said nothing. For that matter, I probably did, too. Maybe we all needed to have a collective therapy session. Napstablook could cry and destroy the couch, Frisk could ask the therapist to repeat everything, and I could…be invisible to the therapist because I was a fucking ghost.

On second thought, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

In the next room, _finally,_ there was the switch. Upon leaving that puzzle, there was the dreaded lever puzzle.

"Okay, I'm useless again." I stated. "I never did understand this puzzle; I was never alone in the Ruins, so I would just hang back and As-" I stopped myself.

"And?" Frisk questioned.

"Nothing. Anyway, I can't help."

"Fine."

I tuned out after that, and when I tuned back into reality, we were at an incredibly familiar place.

"Well, here we are." I said. "Home."


	4. Note

**Okay.**

 **So, I'm sure you've all noticed the lack of updates. Not that it's all thay different from before, but I'm guessing you've noticed it.**

 **Honestly, writing this isn't all that enjoyable anymore. When it comes down to it, my main motivation for working on the fanfic is a couple of bits near the very end I'm excited about, but mostly, it's the sequel that keeps me going.**

 **But I'm not going to just leave you guys hanging-you're the ones reading the fanfic here, so I'm letting you decide what I do. There are a few options.**

 **1\. I say to hell with this fanfic and write the sequel as a standalone.**

 **2\. I power through the fanfic and finish it.**

 **3\. I abandon this fanfic and the sequel, and don't bother with anything in this "series" any longer.**

 **4\. I go on an indefinite hiatus and return to this fanfic whenever.**

 **Leave a review stating what you want, please. I want to please my readers, and I know I have a lot of them.**

 **Thank you.**


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